Theos-Talk Archives (August 2002 Message tt00185)

Dallas, 

Again thanks for your latest comments at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/7769

I want to focus on a number of related statements that you made.

I collate them below from your posting and my comments follow the 
collation:

*** "One think I am quite certain of is that H P B might not have
issued the THIRD VOLUME of The SECRET DOCTRINE without
further editing by her. We do not know that she either did
or did not do this, and we do not know how much of a hand A.
B. may have in such work."

*** "I am in accord with your reasoning but with the same
proviso that we do not have any details of possible changes
in writing or editing H P B may have or may not have made."

*** "We cannot assume that there were none and that throughout
there were NO CHANGES form the brief descriptions and titles
we are given."

*** "We do not know how H P B would have finally edited or
arranged this material. I hesitate to make assumptions on
that, and cannot think we ought to accept without due
caution the material offered as being ENTIRELY as H P B
WOULD HAVE EDITED IT."

*** "She does not say, when she placed it there, that it was
verbatim, unaltered H P B -- in what she called Vol. III of
The SECRET DOCTRINE (and as we can see it contains articles
with the same titles that H P B used. Can we say A B did
nothing to them but transcribe them faithfully and verbatim
?"

*** "A. B. was in the habit of altering things to suit
herself. In this case H P B had no hand in the final
version offered to the public."

*** "In this case she added material. From where? How much?
Why ? How did she know H P B wanted this to be included in
the THIRD VOLUME ?"

MY COMMENTS FOLLOW:

(1) Dallas, notice that your comments above are about the EDITING of 
the HPB material, but that is a separate issue from the issue of what 
material in general was in Volume I of the 1886 SD MSS as compared to 
what was in Volume III as of 1887 as compared to what was in Volume 
III as of 1897. In previous posts I have been dealing for the most 
part with this separate issue. Not the editing issue.

(2) Yes, we should be concerned about the editing. How much did 
Annie Besant edit the material? That's a good question. But even if 
she edited the material, does that mean that we should totally 
disregard the material? Or suggest that it is somehow spurious? I 
will address the editing of the material in greater detail in a 
future posting.

(3) Now another point: Dallas, I ask you, ought not the same 
questions that you raise about SD III be also raised about THE 
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY?

I would suggest that every point you make above also applies to THE 
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY.

HPB died before THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY was published. G.R.S. Mead 
was therefore in charge of the final editing of the manuscript for 
publication. 

Your statements could be paraphrased and equally applied to THE 
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY as follows:

(1) "One thing I am quite certain of is that H P B might not have
issued THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY without further editing by 
her. . . . we do not know how much of a hand G.R.S. Mead may have had 
in such work."

(2) "We do not know how H P B would have finally edited or
arranged this material in THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY."

(3) "Mead does not say that the published THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY
was verbatim, unaltered H P B. Can we say Mead did nothing to the TG 
manuscript but transcribe it faithfully and verbatim as finally 
published in THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY?"

(4) "Mead was in the habit of altering things to suit himself.
In this case H P B had no hand in the final version of THE 
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY offered to the public." Compare and contrast 
Mead's actual editing of SD Volumes I and II in 1893. See also 
Mead's editing of MODERN PANARION.

And as you well know, Boris de Zirkoff believed that Mead actually 
ADDED A GREAT DEAL OF MATERIAL to HPB's "original" manuscript of the 
Glossary.

Do you see my point? Every concern you raise about SD Volume III 
applies, as far as I can tell, to THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY.

These concerns may be real but what does the student of Blavatsky's 
writings do? Ignore both posthumously published volumes? That is, 
throw the baby out with the bath water? Or .....

Comments welcomed.

Daniel

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://blavatskyarchives.com/introduction.htm

"...Contrast alone can enable us to appreciate things at
their right value; and unless a judge compares notes and
hears both sides he can hardly come to a correct decision."
H.P. Blavatsky. The Theosophist, July, 1881, p. 218.